Safety bottle closure



J. u. GOULD SAFETY BOTTLE CLOSURE Filed Nov. 29, 1955 April 18, 19 1 M ATTORNEYS INVENTOR Jack U GouZd BY I fla/n/ United States Patent 2,980,274 SAFETY BOTTLE CLOSURE Jack U. Gould, Brooklyn, N.Y., assignor to Ferdinand Gutznann & Co., Brooklyn, N.Y., a corporation of New York a Filed Nov. 29, 1955, Ser. No. 549,691

1 Claim. (Cl. 215-9) Thepresent invention is concerned with safety bottle closures, more especially with re-seal bottle closures that cannot be opened by the mere act of unscrewing and this for the purpose of rendering them substantially proof against access by small children who thus are profected from sickness or death by tampering with bottles of pharmaceuticals, vermicides or other toxic substances.

It is among the objects of the invention to provide a screw or lug cap, tamper-proof for the purpose stated and of the type comprising two concentric shells, free from driving connection, so that turning the outer shell will not unscrew the inner shell, the latter to be driven by the former only by an operation in addition to the turning movement, beyond the scope of a small child, all without resort to a jostling operation or holding the bottle in an unusual position and without resort to a coin, key, nail or other tool, or to a keying instrumentality that is part of and extends from the cap, and in the absence of any auxiliary element, not even a spring or a gasket in addition to the two shell elements and which shall be of correspondingly low cost and ruggedness, and shall be substantially proof against derangement as by jamming or otherwise.

I In general the invention involves the use of nothing more than two concentric shell elements, viz., a screw shell with its conventional liner to be pressed against the rim of the bottle, and an encompassing outer shell in turned at its rim to keep the two shell elements from disassembly. The screw shell and outer shell are made with complementary conformations that ride freely over each other in turning the outer shell, so that the screw shell cannot be unscrewed, but upon a manipulation, such as downward pressure maintained in the turning action, the conformities intermesh and remain intermeshed for driving the screw shell in turning the outer shell. These complementary conformations may be at any of a wide variety of positions in the shell elements but are preferably near the peripheries of the upper ends of the shells. For this purpose the skirt of the screw shell desirably has a knurled or toothed crown adjacent its end wall, the rim of which has a rounded fillet at the junction with the skirt and essentially below the top of which fillet the upper rounded ends of the crown teeth are located. The complementary conformation of the outer shell desirably consists of radial ribs in a peripheral chamfer connecting the end wall to the skirt of the outer shell, said ribs either resting upon the fillet of the inner shell or entering at most between the upper rounded ends of crown teeth, so that simply turning of the outer shell on the bottle will not result in driving the inner screw shell which remains aflixed to the bottle neck. When, however, an initiated 2,980,274 Patented Apr. 18,1961

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person turns the outer shell, while pressing its end wall downward, the ribs in the chamfer of the outer shell will effectively enter and remain between consecutive In the accompanying drawings in which is shown one of various possible embodiments of the several features of the invention,

Fig. 1 is a dropped perspective view showing the two component elements of the cap,

Fig. 2 is a longitudinal cross-section showing the cap in normal or non-driving relation of the outer to the inner shell thereof, and taken along line 2-2 of Fig. 1,

Fig. 3 is a view in longitudinal cross-section showing the relation of the cap parts when downward pressure is exerted on the outer cap for unscrewing the cap from the bottle,

Fig. 4 is a fragmentary sectional view of the cap on a greatly enlarged scale, showing the position of the two shell elements thereof for driving the inner from the outer shell,

Fig. 5 is a view similar to Fig. 4, showing the position of the shell elements when in normal or non-drivingv elation,

Fig. 6 shows a fragmentary cross-section taken on line 6-6 of Fig. 4, and

Fig. 7 is a fragmentary view in longitudinal cross-secs tion showing an alternative embodiment of safety bottle closure installed upon a bottle.

Referring now to the drawings the tamper-proof bottle closure consists of an inner screw shell, desirably a stamped sheet metal screw shell 10 and an outer shell 11, desirably also of stamped sheet metal, which encompasses the inner screw shell and imprisons the latter from separation thereof by suitable enlargement at the rim of the outer shell, which extends under the rim of the encompassed screw shell 10.

The inner sheet metal screw shell 10 has an end wall 12 and a skirt 13, the latter with a screw thread indentation 14 for coaction with the thread 15 molded about the neck of a conventional bottle B. The inner shell has the conventional liner 12' against its end wall 12.

The outer shell 11 is unthreaded and comprises an end wall 16 and a cylindrical skirt 17. The skirt of the outer sheet metal shell is preferably inturned by beading inward as at 18 under the lower edge 19 of the inner shell to prevent separation of the shell elements.

The respective shells are conformed in such manner that the outer shell, which alone is accessible for manipulation when the cap is positioned over the bottle neck,- either' in application or removal, will turn freely over the inner shell and so will deliver no torque, either for screwing the inner shell upon the bottle neck or for unscrewing it from the bottle neck. I

For transmission of torque for either screwing the inner shell upon, or unscrewing it from the bottle, the respective shells have complementary conformations integral therewith, which effect a torque transmitting connection therebetween only while hand pressure is applied downward against the exposed end of the outer shell 11. F v

, tations 24 will remain or h s p p s t sin shell i each of said teeth 20 being shown as extending at right 'angles to, the end wall or parallel to the axis and may be in the order of .06 inch long. The center to center distance between consecutive teeth 20 is desirably about J order of .06 inch in width circumferentially of the shell,

The radial thickntss'of the teeth imay be in the order of .010 inch. As best shown in'Fig's. Sand 6, each tooth provided with a series of teeth 20 equidistantly spaced about the inner shell,

is rounded at21'at its upepr end, whichmay merge with the rounded fillet 22 between the end wall 12 and skirt v13; of the inner shell 10. a 1 a r' V The outer shell 11 is peripherallychamfered at 23 :be-

tween its end wall 16 and its skirt 17. That chamfer may desirably extend at an angle of about 45. The chamfer has a plurality of radial inwardly extending ribs, which in the sheet metal embodiment shown are shown indentations 24." Illustratively such indentations are uniformly spaced at intervals of 90 around the periphery of the upper end wall116 of the outer shell, thoughfof course any other numberof indentations could be used that constitutes a factor of thenumber of teeth on the inner shell.

Thus if the inner shell has 36 teeth, the ribs or indenta tions in the chamber of the outer shell may be 2, 4,6, 12 or 18 or 36 in number, four, six .or'twelve such ribs or The outer shell 33 also of plastic has an inturned peripheral'ledge 34'extendiug under and confining the inner shell 30. a

To effect the driving connection between the two shells, knurl teeth 35 molded illustratively on the chamfer 36 between the end and skirt of the inner cap coact with ribs 37 formed radially in the chamfer junction between the end and skirt of the outer'shell 33. p

In order to permit assembly of the two shell elements without a subsequent molding operation, the outer shell 33 is preferably made of suitable elastic material such as polyethylene which permits it to be stretched outwardly for introduction of the inner. shell thereinto so that upon release it snaps back into normalposition to extend under the edge of the inner shell. The mode of coaction betweenthetwo shells for free rotation of the outer shell upon simple; turning and fordrivi ng connection with the inner shell upon downward pressure concurrently with the turning will be apparent from the foregoing description of the embodimentof Figs. 1 to, 6.

It will of course beunderstood that alternatively the inner shell in Fig. 7 could be of elastic material such as polyethylene to permit it to be compressed in diameter for insertion past the rim 34 of the rigid outer shell, and

upon release it will snap outwardly into the position shown in Fig. 7

. It will of course be understood that the. rigidshell elementcouldf be of plastic or sheet metal, whether it be the indentations distributing the turning twist adequately to avoid undue wear of the teeth. The indentations are illus tratively in the order of about .080 inch long, about .030 inchwi'deand .015 inch deep. With the outer shell normally resting on the inner shell, the radial indentations 24 0f the outer shell, either rest upon the curved ends 21 of the corresponding teeth 20 or may extend between such curved ends, as shown in Fig.6. In turning the outer, shell, as thus rested, the radial indentations24 therein will simply ride over the ends of the knurl teeth 20 and be cammed outward. Accordingly, no driving torque is or can be transmitted to the inner. screw shell which cannot be removed' by merely turning the ;outer shelL regardIess how vigorously. a

However,'if pressure is applied, as for instance by the palmqof the hand, against the'end wall 16 of the outer shell, while turning such outer shell; the pressure will causejthe radial indentations 24 of the outer shell to enter inner shell or the outer shell, and the complementary shell member, if not of. sheet metal, would then be of elastic plastic material to permitassembly;

I Thus a screw cap..is :provided, according to the present invention, which dispenses withlthe need of auxiliary tools, such as a screwdriver, a coin or anail or special handles to effect a driving connection between the inner and-outer shell for removal of the cap; it likewise dispenses with the need for auxiliary locking wedges or the and remain between the upper ends of consecutive teeth V 2 0, and as'the-outer shell is turned while the pressure of the palm is thus continuously exerted, the radial indenbetween the [corresponding teeth 20 so that the inner shell will lie-effectively keyed toi-the uter shell and be rotated therewith, either for applying thecap to or removing the cap from they bottle.

, Thus by a simple conformation, effected in the single fabricating stamping operation of the inner screw shell and a like single stamping operation of the outer shell, and by simply rolling the rim of the outer shell under the rather than of metal. If the inner shell is of plastic, the outershell'can be rolled under its rim exactly as shown in'Fig's; .2 and .3, if that shell be'of metal. 7

In the embodiment of Fig. 7, there is shown a safety inner 'rim of the screw shell after the latter has been bottle closure installed on bottle neck 15', in which the innershell 30 of suitable plastic has a skirt 31 with thread conformation 32 'coactingwvitlr thethre ad molded onfthe bottle neck 15.

like to efiect the driving .connection, or the need for some separate manipulation such as shaking or .moving the bottle to inclined position; thereis also noneed for. auxiliary gripping material, or of one or more auxiliary springs or of elaborate machining operations to obtain the result. Thus a safety screw cap'has'been provided that afiords assurance against opening 'by small children of bottles of pharmaceutical, verimicide or other toxic substances and which has no complications or likelihood of-becoming jammed or deranged andwhich involves nothing more than two shell stampings of conformation such as described, without anyof the'complications or cost involved in priorconstructions for the purpose. a

While the dimensions of knurl teeth, spacing thereof and of keying ribs or indentations above set forth are desirable in one practical embodiment of theinvention, ibis-obvious that the invention may be utilized to advantage with different dimensions of the parts. 7

The term screw shell andconformation for threaded engagement :as used in the claim is of course intended to cover the equivalent lug shell. a As manychanges could be made-in the above construction, and many apparently widely diiferent embodiments of this invention could be made without departing from the scope of the claim, it is intended that all mattercontained in the above :description or shown in the accompanying drawings shallbe interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense. a c Having thus described my'invention, what I claim as new'land desire to secure -by Letters Patent of the United States 1 A safety bottle capconsisting of two parts, namely an inner shell and an outer shell, each said shell :having an end face and a skirt with a lower rim,the inner shell shell encompas'sin'g the inner shell and resting directly thereon for free rotation with respect thereto, the two shells having complementary conformations below the respective end faces thereof and near the peripheries of the upper ends of the inner and outer shells respectively, but at a substantial distance above the respective rims for interlock upon pushing the outer shell downward, for

keying to the inner shell to efiect turning movement of the two shells in unison, said complementary conformations consisting of (a) a series of teeth equidistantly spaced about the inner shell, each said tooth being rounded and terminating substantially at the end face of 5 inner shell when downward turning pressure is applied.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Sentman Nov. 17, 1936 2,710,701 Hale June 14, 1955 

